@Bas:I am not saying she did, but the furore she was at the centre of in saying that Muglia said Silverlight was dead is certain to be a contributory factor to his departure. Personally, I understood what he said in plain English, but Mary-Jo and the Linux people celebrated in the dawn of HTML5 and it being the new thing since sliced bread.

Personally, I don't see how you can find issue in a 23 year old veteran at a company by suddenly wanting him demoted. This is all about brownie points for

1) All the Microsoft staff involved in Silverlight that became his enemies overnight

2) A chance for Ballmer to show he is not afraid of removing the most senior people in his company

In the world of 24 hour news, people can lose their jobs if the greater public are seen to be misled or malinformed by instances such as the Mary-Jo one.

I don't deny her excellent journalism, and ability to be consistently readable, current, and relevant, but she had a part in this (for me, at least), there is no doubt about that.

If Ballmer fired his most successful division president over his accurate characterization of Microsoft's not-very-secret repositioning of Silverlight, he is an idiot. Not that I think it had anything to do with it.

@vesuvius: According to all the information released, Ballmer didn't remove him. He decided to replace Muglia as head of STB. What his further plans for him were is unclear And Muglia didn't 'lose his job': he quit. Nobody demoted him either. For all we know he was offered a position as head of some other division.